Interviews
Morning Sun 6/08- re: Gratiot County Animal Shelter
Detroit Free Press 5/08 - re: River Rouge Animal Control

Why

Michanimalnews.com is a news service devoted to bringing to light issues that affect Michigan animals. Sadly, traditional media no longer provides intelligent coverage of issues, whether about animals, the environment or even children. Instead more newspaper space is devoted to pro business articles, celebrities and other nonsense. The era of great investigative newspaper reporting is over and the newspapers are on the verge of extinction. The best place for in depth coverage of news is on the internet.

An example of choices made by traditional media is the horrifying tale of abuse of cows by Westland Hallmark Slaughterhouse in California. The story broke on the web; Humane Society of the United States posted the video on its website and sent out releases. A couple of weeks later, on a Sunday, the USDA announced it was recalling all meat produced at that plant for 2 years. ABC News carried the video and the story on its World News Tonight and continued to cover the story. Local television stations provided coverage, although nothing that could be called in depth. One of Detroit's two daily newspapers, the Detroit Free Press ran 3 inches in Monday's business section and nothing about the recall on Tuesday. The recall meat was found at 3 school districts in Michigan, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Portage.

Failure to cover the Westland Hallmark story not only fails to tell the tale of abuse, but also, fails to warn the public of the dangers posed by eating the meat from sick cows. Detroit Free Press readers do not know that sick cows are being fed to children. They do know that Verizon Wireless is shifting to one price plans in the Detroit area, that story made it to page 1 on Tuesday with spill over on another half page. Call me crazy, but I think the slaughterhouse story merits page 1, not what basically was an ad for Verizon.

So michanimalnews.com will do it's best to give you the information that you need to know about issues affecting animals.

What

What is michanimalnews.com? First, it's new; it went online in December of 2007. There is only one staffer, who is also editor and web designer, Justine DePalma, writer and animal activist. As our readership grows we hope to add great writers and a fabulous website designer. But for now you have me.

Michanimalnews.com will investigate corporations, governmental agencies and charities as they relate to animals. We will not cover individual acts of cruelty – those get covered by the traditional media and quite frankly bring such darkness to animal issues that it's difficult to consider that things can improve. Yes, stories will be told from a pro animal perspective. We will not accept spin in response to our questions; we instead will expose the facts. It's my hope that michanimalnews.com will become your source for not only news, but also contemplation and education about the plight of animals in the Michigan.

Subscriptions
If you like what you've been reading, then show your support by subscribing to www.michanimalnews.com.  Subscribers will receive stories as they are posted on the web. This will keep you up to date on the issues that you are interested in. 

The fee for subscription is only $10 a year.  The fee helps pay for investigation of shelters, pet shops and other animal businesses throughout the state of Michigan.

Contact

If you would like to suggest an investigation or to comment on a story email: editor@michanimalnews.com.